The oblong body was not Rarity’s thankfully; it was a gray creature with four spindly legs that ended in four fingers with three inch claws, one of which acted as a thumb. It was spewing a bright neon purple blood that floated aimlessly in the air, alongside some of its innards thanks to the lack of gravity. It was certainly dead and if it wasn’t, CAT-2 aimed its gun at what looked like the creatures slightly large caved in head and fired. The shot splattered its hoof marked skull all over the place sending little flecks of flesh, bone, blood and brains floating and coating the floor and nearby wall.
“Rarity, are you okay? Your vital signs are still good so you must be alive, please respond.” CAT-1 turned its light upward and saw a hoof extend out of the vent and with a tug at its edge Rarity floated out of the vent gasping for breath.
“I think I’m horrified beyond belief, why the blood stains alone will take forever to get off of my suit! That and I actually just killed something!” Shivering at the thought of killing a living creature, even one that was about to bite her head off, had Rarity upset at what she had to do. “What was it?”
Rarity’s HUD was slightly smeared with its blood; her suit was also covered in large splotches of the bright purple stuff that had a strange neon tint to it. The HUD lit up and a visual image of the creature came up, there was no doubt as to why Rarity flinched at seeing a living version of it on her HUD after having had such a close encounter.
“It’s actually in the databanks; it’s called a Xouj. They are a carnivorous species known for being fast sneak attack hunters who have strong jaws for eating bones and will consume every part of their victims. They are as capable with gravity as much as without it with their springy legs, so running from them is not exactly an option. It doesn’t matter if their victims are poisonous or hazardous to their health, with an immune system like theirs they will survive ingesting just about anything organic. They hunt by always aiming to quickly kill their prey before they can fight back, usually by crushing their prey’s skull in their jaws. Without the element of surprise they are easily dealt with by small arms fire. Note, just because they aren’t good at upfront confrontation doesn’t mean they aren’t dangerous with those claws if cornered.” Opal knew having a fully formed Xouj displayed on Rarity’s HUD was a bit of a bad idea judging by how she reacted. The big headed thing had a large mouth full of sharp teeth and three small beady eyes, it had a really short thick neck connecting to the oblong tailless body and it gave a quite roar as it spun a slow circle in Rarity’s vision. “These creatures have a unique ability to put their bodies into a form of stasis, one that slows down their biological functions when they feel that food is scarce. Here are a few helpful notes from someone who’s studied this species in depth. If one is present be wary of opening doors, the color gray and any already open entrances. They should not attack you if you can actually see them coming and will proceed to stalk you unless you deal with them, they will always go after an easier prey if one is present.”
“So I was basically attacked by a giant space flea from out of nowhere?” A giant space flea that could and almost did bit her head off, suffice it to say Rarity was spooked and her eyes were darting everywhere. She felt like jumping at the sight of her own shadow in the light the CATs were directing her way.
“Scanning EVA suit for structural integrity… no visible damage found, though getting all that blood off it will be a problem for later. I’m suggesting something to clean off the faceplate as something to add to the design in case something compromises vision, maybe two emergency camera’s that can send visuals to your HUD when it’s compromised.” Popping up on the HUD Opal looked at Rarity’s still slightly darting eyes. “Also it couldn’t be considered a flea since it doesn’t have any hair or carapace. If anything it’s more like a hairless four legged trapdoor spider with thumbs, just without the natural wall crawling ability that spiders normally have. Are you okay Meowstress Rarity?”
“No I don’t think I’ll be okay and I should be the one asking you that!” Trying to give her AI a smile had Rarity forcing it onto her face so badly that she knew Opal wasn’t going to buy it at all. “Physically I’m fine aside from the whiplash bruises and that’s what matters, right darling?”
The pony wasn’t going to look at the dead body floating nearby still spewing fluids from the two wounds to the torso she had managed on it at point blank range with the energy pistol. That was all the hits out of the four shots the equine had managed to fire before getting some leverage to buck it harshly in the skull twice while pushing against the roof of the vent. Since the Xouj had been holding onto the insides of the vent the first buck was very effective in damaging its skull, the second one was the one that launched it out of the vent and it all happened in a blur.
“Your mental health matters to me too you know. Shall we continue the mission for taking the bridge then?” Intoned a somber Opal quietly, she ran her paws through her hair on Rarity’s HUD as she continued on while looking away from the eyes that were more worried about her. “I’m still getting a good signal through the hull and the delay time for control of either drone is an optimal three seconds thus far. On the plus side I can still appear on the HUD, so yeah. As for movement, of the twenty life signs I’m getting there’s only one other moving down on deck three near another one. Its slow moving and not anywhere near you. I don’t know what any of these life signs are; so we can not be a hundred percent that they are all Xouj. There are two others on the same deck as you, there are a lot of life signs around deck two which makes sense if that’s where the living quarters are and very few on deck three. ”
“Twenty? Shouldn’t there be nineteen. Oh of course! I’m a life sign too, how silly of me to forget I’m alive. Is it okay for me to still be grossed out and horrified on a number of levels, I could use a little time to come to terms with this.” The digital cat in front of her eyes shrugged as she tittered light, Rarity sighed before closing her eyes to get herself mentally back in gear. She floated there for a few minutes just breathing. “I want to be a pony that every intelligent being out there should know, I know I can get over being mentally scarred for life!”
“That’s the spirit, took you five minutes though give or take three seconds. Now come on Meowstress Rarity.” Opal had the CAT-1 drone take up position and start moving forward sweeping its light back and forth.
Rarity followed behind CAT-1 and nervously looked at the shadows every now and then of the dark corridor. Behind her CAT-2 took up the rear watching their backs and floating backwards behind them.
They proceeded down the corridor and passed through several doors that required the CATs to power and open, they closed them after they passed through. The group came up to an intersection, they saw a path to the left leading to a corridor that ran throughout the middle of the ship and another one that ran through right side of the ship beyond that. The group had come into the ship at the corridor that ran throughout the left side of the ship of the top deck.
“I got movement, hold position. Both the life signs are moving ones coming down the corridor you’re in and… it’s somewhere that way out of the sight of CAT-1’s light because I’m not seeing it. The other one is now waiting just around the corner of the right side corridor from the intersection you’re at right now. I think they’re trying to set up an ambush.” It was an attentive Opal that was on top of the situation and had both the CATs move closer to Rarity while aiming the guns in their manipulators in both directions. “Watch out for open vents, we’ll try to proceed up the middle corridor. I’m not able to track where they are exactly, considering what happened to you earlier I’m in a shoot first ask questions later mood with these things.”
Staying quiet, Rarity floated onwards as they took a left towards the middle corridor. Rarity was glad her suit was designed to stay temperate or else she’d be sweating right now and as a lady she really didn’t want to smell ripe. She was watching the corner of the right side corridor as they approached the middle corridor and she could hear a shifting movement as they reached the four way intersection. She looked away then looked back and saw the Xouj diving back around the corner as soon as her lights were upon it. She shivered slightly at knowing it was there.
“Rarity, don’t tease the Xouj. Now we take a right, the other one has moved to the corner behind us. Slowly move after me and turn so that you’re facing backwards until CAT-2 can cover our backs.” It was a bit tense and Opal was splitting her concentration between the two CATs, on top of keeping track of the two life signs around the corners of the left and right side intersections they were now leaving. “Okay you can safely turn around now, but keep the pistol ready.”
Rarity turned around and held the energy pistol at the ready. They continued down the corridor passing by several closed doors. She looked over her shoulder worriedly and turned back to looked along the walls and ceiling, sometimes seeing little more than splatters of blood in varying colors or some claw marks. It was so dark and quiet; she didn’t even hear the Xouj move to the four way middle corridor intersection behind them and she was now one highly spooked pony. Looking towards the floor she saw something like a box lying against a corner of the empty hall.
“Opal, I think I see a drone.” If it were up to Rarity, she’d have a whole army of drones watching her back right now instead of the two flimsy CAT drones armed with energy pistols.
“Good catch, watch the corridor ahead of CAT-1 for me, we don’t need them circling around on us. I’ll see if I can get this drone operational, it looks pretty messed up though.” Rarity took up position to watch the corridor in the direction they were heading as CAT-1 moved over to check out the mechanical device. At least now there were two drones between her and the two Xouj. “Okay, a wire here or there and… okay I’ve accessed its memory. It’s a MAT drone, diagnostics says it can still move, only its weapon is unusable so it won’t be much more use than another light source since it has also lost its manipulator arms. It was torn limb from limb by one of the Xouj. I guess they don’t like the taste of metal, good to know. Making necessary repairs to get it somewhat functional, maybe its light will be enough to keep them from attacking us.”
Several sparks out of the corner of her vision later and another light joined as the rectangular shaped drone floated in front of Rarity and started slowly moving forward as CAT-1 took up a position next to her. Quirking an eye at it, Rarity was about to ask a question when Opal explained.
“Better a more operational drone stay safe, than one that’s barely functional at all.” It was a quick and easy explanation from Opal that received a nod.
Continuing onwards they bypassed two more doors and the two Xouj tried to attack as the first door was closing and its screech would haunt Rarity for a while as it clawed at the other side of the metal wall. It wasn’t long before they came to another four way intersection.
“Okay it looks like we’re in the clear for the bridge, unless the Xouj can find another open vent near us, the other corridors must have doors in their way too.” Opal looked up through Rarity’s faceplate using CAT-1’s vision; she could see the pony biting her lower lip. “We’ve made it this far, I’m sure the bridge isn’t that bad.”
-
It had taken them a ladder with a manually opened hatch and another door to bypass to get to the bridge.
“Okay, so it’s a little bad.” Opal winced as Rarity curled up into a fetal position hovering slightly above the floor near the bridge’s entrance as the MAT drone kept watch in the corridor below and the CAT-2 started surveying the room with its sensors.
The cause of Rarity’s current curled up position was that the bridge was practically coated in dried blood and rotting half eaten unidentifiable putrid bodies of varying species. The stickier bits of guts were stuck sprinkling the floor in various places and quite a few dead Xouj were floating around in recognizable blasted apart chunks. There were no life signs in this room aside from Rarity’s and she was currently freaking out about the grim visuals.
“Okay… powering on the computer so I can get the rest of the ship up and running.” CAT-2 started to power the computer. “Rarity, get yourself together. They are just… yeah this definitely counts as psychologically horrific for most biological beings. Look at it this way, they can’t hurt you, they have been long dead and you’re wearing a suit so you don’t have to touch, smell or even taste them. It could be much worse.”
“There are so many dead bodies.” Muttered a whimpering Rarity who seemed to be rocking back and forth in place in the air, she was not handling this very well. “The need to make sick bag modification for my suit is growing stronger by the second.”
“Okay the ship is online… huh. That’s not much of a problem and can be fixed, but we’ll need to get the Caravel Boutique inside and… oh… oh that is so gross. That is worse than what you’re seeing here Rarity.” It was what Opal said that caused Rarity to uncurl and take notice. “Also there are now nineteen life signs left and I can’t open the hangar.”
“Are we not already surrounded by horrors? What could be worse and why are their nineteen life signs now?” If it was something to get Rarity’s mind off the horrors before her, then she’d very well be interested in something else.
“First downloading schematics and cross referencing all the life signs left in the ship so I can put it up on your HUD. Also you really don’t want to see what I just found out. Let’s just say there are two survivors and they are down in the hangar of deck three, they are not looking so hot and I can’t currently show you the visuals as your stomach will just get weaker upon seeing it.” After a moment of silence the entire bridge lit up and Opal appeared on all the screens. “Now taking control of the ship, do you want to help out the two survivors? One of them appears to be injured and they both look a bit ragged.”
“Opal, I respectfully ask that you let me see the survivors on my HUD. I wish to know what they are currently doing before I open communications with them.” The answer to Rarity’s question made her gag and almost vomited inside her helmet. “They’re eating one of those Xouj things!”
“I did warn you. Let’s see if I can get audio since they’re talking to each other. They are the only two survivors left on this ship and they’ve been stuck under these conditions for… approximately a month and a half judging by the time stamp when things were last looking good.” It was seriously odd to Opal that even she could get queasy; this was a new feeling for her.
“Is there any information on them in the computer?” What Rarity was looking at was two griffons, both of them were hens and one was injured a bit. Their names popped up as Greta Gollenfer and Gilda Gottfrieda.
-
“Do you think we’ll ever get off of this ship alive Greta?” Gilda was talking to her companion with a wounded right shoulder and claw marks going up her left side, she was currently bandaging herself up and already had some wrapped around her forehead. She was a griffon with a square shaped head with white plumage and purple markings around her eyes and a beak with a slightly upraised bump that gave it a slight hook shape. Her rumpled feather wings looked like they hadn’t been preened in days and she was horribly dirty to the point that it was hard to tell that her fur was naturally brown. Her friend in comparison looked nicer. She was busy holding on to a piece of metal to keep situated against the floor. “Also I’m getting really sick and tired of eating these assholes that killed off most of the crew that picked us up. They taste like raw cow manure, not that high grade minotaur stuff either, that is mixed with the flavor of skunk stench and rotten eggs.”
“What else are we going to eat? Even if we could get by those things the communications are down, an SOS might get us killed anyway even if we could get one out, navigation is shot, the military drones are shredded and impulse wasn’t working after things went to hell. Not to mention everyone is likely dead and consumed, the lack of any nutritional food and the dangerous monsters stalking us throughout the ship.” Greta was a griffon with a round head and a short less hook like beak compared to her friends, her plumage was white with turquoise markings that was around her eyes and wrapped around her neck. She was a bit smaller than Gilda and had reddish feathers and fur; she looked to be slightly cleaner than Gilda was. “Plus, and mind you I’m not entirely sure about this, the emergency life support system might be failing. Even with all that I believe we can make it, we’re lucky the hangar is secure at the very least. We just have a few… problems… in our way.”
“We certainly have enough of those, especially with the fucking gravity being off! I’d rather go down fighting in a fighter with a huge bang, than die like this with a whimper.” As she was saying this Gilda turned her face away from Greta who pulled down a welders mask and started lighting a plasma torch.
Greta braced her body against the wall and floor before she started torching another part of the Xouj they’d been ripping bits off of and consuming after cooking its flesh.
“You’re a mechanical engineer Gilda, not a fighter pilot like your friend Rainbow. I’m sure once we’ve thinned out their numbers enough we can do something about getting impulse in working order, we can jump in a straight line until we either find civilization or a planet to survive on with the first system we run into. Provided we don’t hit a black hole we can use the SOS if we end up on a wild planet.” Greta turned off the plasma torch and then got a good grip on the Xouj’s dead body and pulled off the fried leg. The Xouj looked to have had its throat completely and violently ripped out. Greta seemed the more chipper of the two whereas Gilda looked like she perfected the art of being gruff as she was handed the leg. “I’m sure we can come across some way to survive this, you know it’s nice that we’re actually getting around to talking about this now.”
“How exactly are we going to do that? Survival is kind of hard when they have us outnumbered and taking them out one at a time is not exactly going to be easy now with these injuries. We don’t exactly have weapons you know and we can’t get into the armory since it’s surrounded by these things on the deck above us, I’m surprised we even have a medical kit.” Gilda was rather dour whereas Greta seemed a bit optimistic. “Drinking the floating water near the toilets is not exactly healthy either; it’s hard to tell what came from the toilets and what came out of the faucets.”
“I’m sure there’s some kind of windfall coming our way, I can repair anything after all and you can design things for me to build. I’m sure we can cobble together some kind of club or blade to deal with these monsters.” Greta grimaced after taking a bite of her own Xouj leg that she just finished firing up; she chewed and constantly grimaced at the taste. She eventually swallowed and continued. “So we’re a bit trapped out in deep space, at least we have each other and are alive.”
“Yeah, I guess. To be honest I’ve been contemplating suicide for a while, but I don’t want to leave your sorry ridiculously optimistic ass alone.” Gilda continued to eat her Xouj leg without complaint, Greta just gave Gilda a hurt look and continued eating her own Xouj leg.
“Well then it’s your lucky day, can you get to a room that I can seal off for a bit?” Both the griffons gave a start at Opal’s voice popping up from out of nowhere. “I need to use the hangar to land a ship.”
“Am I starting hear things Gilda?” It appeared that Greta didn’t want to believe that she was finally losing her sanity.
“No I heard that too, okay who are you and where are you?” Gilda sat up and started looking up at the ceiling.
“This is Rarity Belle along with my AI companion Opal, our ship was recently attacked by pirates and jump module problem left us stranded out here quite recently. Opal is in the ships systems and I’m currently on the bridge.” At hearing the sound of Rarity’s voice, the two griffons looked ecstatic and a little worried. “I hope you don’t mind that I boarded with the express purpose of taking advantage of this ship.”
“So… same boat as us, but for less than a day I take it?” It was Greta responding with a friendly demeanor. “Can you please turn the gravity back on, we’ve been having a heck of time dealing with all these things and a little help could go a long way to having us indebted to you.”
“No need for debts dear, but please go to another room so that Opal can seal it off and land my ship. I have a plan to take care of those dreadful monsters.” It wasn’t really Rarity’s plan; she was just trying to protect her AI companion.
“Can you tell us how many are left?” If there were like three, then Gilda thought that they could take them if this Rarity had any weapons on her.
“There are sixteen of them, two up here on the upper deck that I had to sneak past with my two CAT drones. I picked up a MAT drone but it doesn’t have any functionality besides being a floating flashlight and there’s fourteen on the deck below me and above you.” After that Rarity thought they should know how long they’ve been like this. “You’ve been on this ship for a month and a half; the both of you look like you could use some food, water, medical help and most importantly a shower.”
“If you can promise all that we’ll work for you until either we die! Do you hear this Gilda, we’re saved… well mostly saved!” The cheerful Greta rubbed the back of her head as she pushed at the floor with her wings and floated closer to Gilda to give her a big hug.
“I’m with her, if you can give us all that we’ll happily let you whip us and put slave collars around our necks lady. Heck I’m willing to sell my first born to you, tattoo your name all over my body and let you sexually violate me in any way you deem fit.” Yep Gilda’s obviously cheerful disposition was shining through. “Greta you’re pissing me off, let go of me.”
“Oh seriously, there’s no need to go THAT far. Why I’d happy to help you two out without favors owed. Now give my ship a chance to land will you? You apparently happen to be in a good spot to set it down.” The griffons didn’t need to be told twice as they started to move.
Once the griffons were out of the way an oxygen barrier went up and one of the many doors to the hanger opened up and allowed in the Caravel Boutique before closing.
-
“All hail the pony that just saved our asses!” The Caravel Boutique was a rather beautiful sight to Gilda. The ship opened up and she along with Greta both boarded it with haste to feel the effects of gravity once more, they were tired of this hellhole they’ve been on and wanted some tender loving care.
They swore their lives to Rarity after taking showers for the first time in a long while.
-
The last of the Xouj ran into the hangar chasing after the MAT drone and they were suddenly flash fried by Caravel Boutique's variable thrusters; their screeches would haunt Rarity’s nightmares. They were actually kind of easy to bait into a trap.
“Okay confirm for me, how many life signs are left now Opal?” Leaning back in clean chair on the bridge of the now cleared out ship was Rarity who had watched Opal bait the Xouj into the variable thrusters on the Caravel Boutique with the drones. It was a rather safe, quick and effective method of dealing with them.
“It’s confirmed you and the two griffon gals are all that is alive now, setting CATs and MAT to search for other drones or parts to repair them with. All we need to do now is clean up and get the impulse working so that we can turn the ship in the right direction to jump the rest of the way to Quia System.” Sighing in relief, Opal was happy that Rarity was eventually going to be alright.
“Oh can I help get the impulse running again? If not then give me something to do!” It seemed Greta was eager to get things moving. Next to her Gilda rolled her eyes before biting into a chunk of cheese liberated from the Caravel Boutique’s food stores.